Heifer Development & Health

You may be wondering a little bit about how we've developed these bred heifers. Here's the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

As calves, these ladies grew up alongside their mamas in the pasture. Our calves don't receive creep unless they are selected to be part of the showstring - of which these girls were not a part of. In fact, they had to earn their own keep on mother's milk and grass. Moreover, these two heifers were sired by our herd bull and had to standout from the AI-sired calves born a month earlier.

Our philosophy on developing calves is this: We don't push them. Jack explains, "It's a gradual process. Once they're weaned they're not put on a hot ration, but slowly developed from weaning to yearling. Then we back-off."

Lot #8 weaned at 495 lbs. (actual); Lot #9 weaned at 555 lbs. (actual). They had a 108 (563 lbs. adjusted) and 112 (582 lbs. adjusted) weaning weight ratios, respectively. We gain test all of our bulls and heifers, weighing them monthly. On 3/31/2008, Lot #8 weighed 824 lbs. (actual) and Lot #9 weight 875 lbs. (actual) Incidentally - these were our two heaviest yearling weights in the 2008 heifer replacement pen.

In April, we focus on two things: getting heifers bred and letting 4-Hers pick the heifer they would like to lease. We use MGA and target to breed heifers the first week of May, an entire cycle before our cowherd. These girls both bred first-time to AI.

Courtney Johnson also looked through the entire pen of replacement heifers and selected Lot #8 as her first 4-H heifer to lease. She did a great job of halter breaking the female and showing it throughout the summer. Alaina halter-broke Lot #9 for her friend Becky Deutsch to show - which was easy because this heifer is a gentle giant.

These two heifers were shown at two county fairs, a state fair and two regional livestock shows. All this means is that they were kept in a 30-acre lot of grass pasture, fed grain from the months of June-August and lead around the pen being worked with by each of our family and 4-Hers. I would call this the "spoiled" life. That lifestyle came to and abrupt end after Labor Day, when the show season was over and all of our replacement heifers moved to pasture.

When I came home in November to see how the heifers were doing were doing, I was surprised at fleshy they were, despite not having any more resources offered them. Jack weighed the heifers on 11/20/2008 and they were heavier than I expected. Lot #8 weighed in at 1,327 lbs. and Lot #9 weighed in at 1,342 lbs. I expected these are the deepest-bodied, easiest fleshing heifers we've ever brought to the MN Great Northern sale.

Those of you who've seen us show cattle know that we don't push "fat" cattle. By no means have these gals been pushed. Oh - and rest assured health wise. We have voluntarily whole-herd tested our herd for bovine tuberculosis (TB) for the past two years. These females will sell tested TB-free within 30 days and have had their pregnancy status verified. We've also poured them for internal/external parasites, both as weaned calves and bred heifers; and they've been bangs vaccinated. If you have any other question about how they've been developed, or specific health questions, I invite you to contact our herd health vet, Bethany (Lovaas) Funnell at the University of Minnesota (her contact info is here).